During the Wanli Heavenly Apocalypse of the Ming Dynasty, a famous poet and scholar named Yao Lu wrote a notebook "Book of Dew" in his later years.
The book mentions a plant ("purple jasmine"), but he does not seem to like purple jasmine very much, believing that it "flowers like jasmine but not fragrant, and has its own appearance". He introduced that the purple jasmine was brought back from North Korea by Zhu Yuanjie ("Yun Zhu Yuanjie moved from North Korea").
Purple Jasmine has a common name called Zhu Yuanhua, which I guess is related to Zhu Yuanjie. Zhu Yuanjie, given name Fan, was the champion in the 23rd year of the Wanli Dynasty of the Ming Dynasty, and was an official to the Ministry of Ceremonies, and the imperial court had sent him as an envoy to Korea.
However, purple jasmine is not native to North Korea, but to tropical America.
Since Columbus discovered the New World in the 15th century, there has been a global explosion of species, and purple jasmine was introduced to Europe from Peru in the 16th century, and Europeans brought it to the world through trade and travel.
It is rumored that the Chongzhen Emperor of the Ming Dynasty did not like the use of lead powder on the faces of the palace ladies, and the lead powder applied to the face makeup was too thick and heavy like a grimace in the temple. So they replaced the lead powder with the white powder contained in the mine-like seeds of purple jasmine, which not only made the makeup natural, but also reduced the damage to the skin, and everyone was happy.
The so-called "seed" here is not a real seed, but the thin fruit of purple jasmine.
Popular at the court, purple jasmine naturally became a high-end cosmetic raw material at that time, only for the court and the nobility.
It was not until Qianlong, the sixth emperor of the middle Qing Dynasty, noticed it, that Zi Jasmine's fate took a turn from then on.
The Qianlong Emperor felt that purple jasmine was "unique and generally guarded, who knew that purple clothes were not fragrant", which meant that purple jasmine had no fragrance, and what was the use of having a beautiful purple skin?
As a result, everyone also disliked it. Purple Jasmine has since been able to enter the homes of ordinary people from the court.
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Purple Jasmine (zǐ mò lì)
Latin scientific name: Mirabilis jalapa L.
Common names: dinner flower, late flower, wild lilac, bitter lilac, lilac leaf, champion flower, night rice flower, pink bean flower, rouge flower, roasted soup flower, night Jiao flower, tide flower, pink bean, white flower purple jasmine, mine flower, white open night combination
Taxonomic system: --Plant kingdom--Angiosperm phylum--Dicotyledons--Central seed order--Purple jasperaceae--Purple jasmine genus
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